Men of the South
by S. D. Vincent
Summary: A meditation on the choices faced and made by the Men of the south in fighting for Sauron


men of the south  
  
info: tolkien's story, ideas, etc. not mine.  
  
nothing really graphic to worry about here. some vague references to death and battle and the likes... i'm hoping to make a more in-depth fictional story out of this, later.  
  
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We are not evil men.  
  
Evil in the eyes of the north, perhaps yes. But we are not evil at heart through the eyes of the wise. We are just the same as you: we are flesh and bone. When pierced through with an arrow we fall; when hewn with a blade we bleed and die.We fight, we kill, and we wage war. But to say we are evil is unjust.  
  
Sauron did as any good leader would: he rallied us, and for all of our lack of foresight we bent to his will. He was convincing, he was influential.When the call came, there was no man or boy who would dare refuse such a command; we loaded our bags, kissed our wives good-bye, and marched north through the deserts.  
  
We are not evil men.  
  
Evil in the eyes of the north, perhaps yes. But we are not evil at heart through the eyes of the wise. We are just the same as you: we are flesh and bone. When pierced through with an arrow we fall; when hewn with a blade we bleed and die.We fight, we kill, and we wage war. But to say we are evil is unjust.  
  
Sauron did as any good leader would: he rallied us, and for all of our lack of foresight we bent to his will. He was convincing, he was influential.When the call came, there was no man or boy who would dare refuse such a command; we loaded our bags, kissed our wives good-bye, and marched north through the deserts.  
  
There was promise of land, after our victory. There was the allure of plunder -- of the treasures of the Men of the North and West, who have long hoarded them from us, the Men of the South. Sauron commanded our loyalty and our lives, but the reward for such a service he told us, would be well worth the toils.  
  
We did just as any warm-blooded Man would.  
  
We camped near the tower, in Morder From Barad-dur we heard the great din of horns and the clank of armour as Orcs were fitted to join us, the army made ready. The ash and smoke that came from the mountain of fire set a chill in our very bones -- though we have lived by a sea of sand and flame all our lives, there was never the tumult and chaos that seemed alive in Mordor, never the death that fed the black hearts of the Orcs. No, they were never our allies like you may think.  
  
When we marched upon Minas Tirith we were the second wave, sent as the first finished the razing of the outer walls. My eyes glimpsed the city from atop a mumak; the splendid city was beautiful even as it crumbled and burned.  
  
What a sight it must have been to see in all of its glory, when it was not necessary to pit Man versus Man in ugly war!  
  
Did we really want to fight? I most certainly did not. There's a difference between the Man who fights for freedom and valour, and the Man who fights because there is no other coice, because he is impelled against his reason and will. We were these kinds of Men.  
  
Under the stars at night when we halted our slow marches through foreign wilderness, we sang songs of our people, our cities. We still smiled, listening to the stories of our neighbors about people we remembered, places we ha walked as free Men.  
  
One of the first hardships we faced after leaving our lands was a raid in the forests south of Osgiliath, before we marched to Mordor's walls.A small garrison of rangers, hidden in the shrubs ambushed us.   
  
I rode the lead Mumak when the one behind began to bray and snort, shaking Men off its body. They are only hostile creatures when provoked; I ordered a volley, but it was too late.The mumakil were frightened; it took all o fmy strength to keep my own on its path. Arrows flew by my head, so close I could feel the air move as they grazed me. Several Men were pierced, tumbling to the ground below, lost, as we hurried on. We let go one of the mumak, whose leader was dead and hanging from the reins; it flung most of its riders to the ground before speeding away into the tangled woods. My own first lieutenant was one of the Men riding with me who was shot -- though before he died he fired many arrows of his own, straight and true.  
  
When we camped that night, we lay the bodies in a funereal pyre and burned them, praying to the Valar, who've long forgotten us, to see them at peace in death. Until the end, when what few forces remained returned home, we'd never dealt with the One Ring. Sauron told us nothing of this thing, this personal endeavor of his.   
  
I'm not saying I'm ignorant of worldly matters, but it was only when I'd returned home, and in the settling haze of post-war cleanup I sat in my study and read over written histories, only then learning of the chaos which we'd helped to set in motion.  
  
And as the many long histories of Men and Elf, Wizard and evil foe unfolded in the bound books in my library, ever did I feel the weight and unbelief and horror grow in my stomach.  
  
Sauron, first lieutenant of Morgoth. Melkor, the great evil of all evils upon Arda. We fought for him, frightened of his evil will, unable to remove ourselves from this danger and regain favor with the Valar.  
  
My close friends and family, dead from the long battles, their remains lost on fields far from home.  
  
In the end as a people on a side we did not choose for ourselves, we were defeated. Sauron's will for the fate of Middle Earth was the wrong one -- his evil tower of Barad-dur fell into a great caverness abyss that opened in the earth when the Ring was destroyed.  
  
I was lucky; my forces were on the easter fields of the Pelennor, regrouping, trying to locate as many of our dead as we could, to ease their passing. Many of the great beasts that Sauron summoned from the south along with us lay rotting in the open field; their carcasses -- imovable for feeble Men -- would be long-lasting testaments to the trials we faced as a race.   
  
The few left that I commanded carried heavy loads of Haradrim soldiers: the wounded, whom I was desperately trying to find and returnhom. Those who could, walked, ran, marched away. We were eager to return to the world which we were familiar with, eager to bury the dead.  
  
I know why Men of the north hated us. They wanted us dead just as we wanted them dead. When we met head-on in battle under the burning afternoon sun, the fighting we did was no longer for a definite good nor evil but for our brothers, our fellow soldiers, our captains. It was to kill the Men who were killing us, not to gain a Ring of Power whose fate was one of Doom and defeat, anyhow. 


End file.
